Friday, May 24, 2013

Moonlit Masquerade

The first daylily bloomed today! This one is called "Moonlit Masquerade" and produces 5.5" flowers. It is the first of many to come as almost every daylily we have has flower spikes growing. We also had another hollyhock bloom, it's a darker pink compared to the first one. Soon enough we should have some zinnias! And I replanted my hanging baskets for the summer and this year I used two kinds of sweet potato vine (light and dark), a coral verbena and a white calibrachoa or million bells. I can't wait until they fill in!

Moonlit Masquerade daylily in the morning; still had some dew on it.


Moonlit Masquerade in the evening.

Yesterday just wasn't our day with flowers...two of our dahlia tubers bit the dust. It's been raining too much for them and they just turned to mush. However, we did cut off the soggy part and repotted them to see if they will come back. Also...sadly to say, one of my orchids might croak. It's my dark yellow and pink, tiger looking one. About three of its leaves fell off yesterday and we took it out of its pot and a bunch of roots were rotted. So I had to cut off the rotten roots and repotted it into some different potting media. As of right now, it's still living and the flowers are still perky, so we'll see what happens. I think the humidity rose too quickly and I loved it too much (aka I over watered). For my other orchids, I've put them back in front of the living room window and now have a fan blowing over them to combat the humidity. I hope this helps!

My hanging baskets

The new hollyhock
More blooms on the old hollyhock.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Spring Update

The Hollyhock bloom. Unsure of which type it is right now.
Ahh yes, time to cue the generic "it's been way too long since I've posted" blog post. But I must say lots has happened since the last post. The garden is almost completely planted and everything seems to be settling into their new homes fairly well. Some of the annual seeds are sprouting, we have flowers on some tomato plants and we have our first bloom of the season on a hollyhock. As of this week, there were 42/45 dahlias and 8/12 calla lilies sprouting. Now that it has officially heated up down here, it's only a matter of time for everything to start blooming. Next week we may even see the first daylilies of the season. All of this growing just gets me excited to see all the color in the yard!

My February Sweater being blocked.
As for the knitting....I did finish my February Sweater, however, I still need to find buttons for it. I am pleased with how it turned out, but it ended up too long after blocking. A few weeks ago I started my first shawl; it is a free pattern on Ravelry called 22 Little Clouds. I am using some of my Malabrigo yarn, Rastita, for it and it is super soft! Too bad I won't be able to wear it until the fall now.

Most recently, I started a new job as a part-time cashier with a local garden center. It doesn't sound too difficult, but man it can be pretty stressful. The phone rings off the hook, lots of customers and too many plants to learn!  It is apparently their "busy season" right now, so I'm hoping it will get a little easier. One last bit of news, I have a new orchid! It is a beautiful all white one that Brendan's mom bought me last weekend when she was here. Quite a surprise!

 

Now I think I'm caught up! I will definitely try to keep up as the flowers start blooming! Here is one last picture I'd like to share with you all....this bird was absolutely stunning!

A visitor at our bird feeder, an Indigo Bunting.